‘Worn’ Stars

Public Works replacing old Christmas stars to light downtown streets

With just 12 weeks until the holiday season arrives in Lititz, the stars are almost out.

Shawn Carpenter tests the lights of the newly-constructed stars.

That is, the stars are almost finished.

The Lititz Borough Public Works crew has been busy putting the final touches on Lititz’ brand new reproduction stars that will light the downtown streets beginning this December. There will be 55 new stars, each designed to be nearly identical to the old stars, and originally dates back to 1937. The old stars were showing their age and needed to be replaced. So Lititz Public Works foreman Andy Garner had a prototype made of a new star that looked almost the same as the old ones. The prototype was designed by Chad Reed, who works for the borough. The reproduction five-point aluminum star was then powder-coated for durability in the elements and fitted with lights to match the historic stars.

The difference is that the new stars have energy-efficient LED light bulbs.

Once the new star design was approved by Lititz Borough Council, an order was put in for Paul B. Zimmerman to fabricate and powder coat the 55 new stars. After that, the borough’s public works crew went to work doing the electrical wiring and installing the 23 light bulbs. Five of them, on each point are red, while the rest are white.

“It takes about three hours to do the wiring and light bulbs,” said Reed, who has been working with fellow co-workers Doug Minney and Shawn Carpenter on the project. The crew was pretty far behind getting the stars put together, due to their road work and sinkhole repair responsibilities in the borough. What they really needed were a few rainy days to work indoors and get the stars done.

Mother Nature was happy to comply. On a rainy Wednesday morning, the three were working on the stars and had 46 of them already built up.

Chad Reed checks on his handiwork- 55 brand new stars that will adorn the downtown this December.

“We should have them all done by the end of the week,” said Carpenter.

The 55 stars are being stored at borough warehousing on North Lane, and will be set up in early December along Main and Broad Streets in the borough.

“Everyone was adamant that they look like the old stars, and they do,” said Lititz Borough Police Chief Kerry Nye.

In just three months the stars will be out in downtown Lititz, continuing a long-time holiday tradition.

Laura Knowles is a freelance feature writer and regular contributor to the pages of the Record Express. She welcomes feedback and story tips at lknowles21@gmail.com.